Final Project! February 6 at Jacome Plaza

On February 6, 2008 the Kore Press Grrls Literary Activism Class took to the streets of downtown Tucson to spread hapiness to passerbys by handing out free cookies with messages written on them, valentines, and T-shirts with "peace and love" stenciled and spray painted. In part, this action was intended to counteract a anit-immigration activist spreading hateful messages during the lunch hour in Jacome Plaza. Read below about some of the community response.

Tucson Weekly Mention: http://www.tucsonweekly.com/gbase/Currents/Content?oid=oid:106594

Rachel Villarreal from Voices Inc.:

Last week this guy, Alan Ward, from the Farmer's Market came by. You know how we saw the white banner in front of the anti-immigration guy, this was his statement. Apparently it worked and the anti guy was arrested b/c he got so out of control. He came by here wondering if the students who handed out the cookies wanted to come out again. He was really impressed with their activism and was hoping they could continue to be involved.

Teacher Kimi Eisele: Remember your "FREE HAPPINESS" act? Well, it worked.[...]your work got noticed.

You can read the writing and thinking these guerrilla grrls did throughout the 12 week class, including a sample artist statement (see Carrie's blog), by clicking on the class member blogs located on the right side of this page.

Assignments to Complete before 1/16/08 Class

Blog Assignment due 1/14/08:

Refer to my Thursday, Jan 3 post. Scroll down to the last half of the post where I transcribed our in-class brainstorms about project ideas.

Please review these brainstorms and pick one statement that you would like to spend some time thinking about further. Use the statement that you choose as the title of your blog post.

Freewrite about this idea for 10 minutes. What do you like or dislike about this idea? What do you think the deeper implications of such an act would be.

Lastly, visit your peers blogs and see which ideas they have been thinking about. Make a comment on one other grrls blog.

Blog Assignment due before we meet on 1/16/08:

Reflect on the Henna class.

What did you chose to write on your body? What changes in the tattoo have you noticed in the last week? How have people reacted to your henna tattoo?

Visit your peers blogs and make a comment.

Winter Catch-Up

Dear Grrls,

Please bring to our next class (1/9) the following: 1) a blueprint of your henna tattoo. Our henna artist guest speaker will be in attendance and we'll be working with henna for the bulk of class. Also bring 2) a list of three to five statements you would like to make in your final project. These statements can be things that make you angry or frustrated in the world or they can be things that make you happy and that you'd like to celebrate. We brainstormed a list of some of those ideas in our last class they include:

Humanity-everyone is the same to a degree--our connection to each other.
Double standard--expectations of boys
Less than 100 yrs. ago women never went to college. Education consisted of needlework, sewing, art, music.
Body Maps--1st assignment how everyone had a different story for the same part.
When people have problems with things but they don't do anything about it.
Against abstinence education
authority
ageism
celebrate swinging, bicycles, community, relationships, solitude.

We'll be reading our lists to each other at the end of class so please be prepared for that. Once you have more of an idea about WHAT you want to say we'll be moving on to discuss HOW you want to say it. We did some preliminary brainstorming of HOW we might like to say WHAT we have to say in our last class. Please complete BEFORE next class (1/9):

1. Please review these brainstorms and pick one statement that you would like to spend some time thinking about further. Use the statement that you choose as the title of your blog post.
2. Freewrite about this idea for 10 minutes. What do you like or dislike about this idea? What do you think the deeper implications of such an act would be.
3. Lastly, visit your peers blogs and see which ideas they have been thinking about. Make a comment on one other grrls blog.

Below please find the list of brainstorms, separated into thematic categories, we did in class last week. Please use them to complete the above assignment.

BROADCAST IDEAS

Have a TV in a public place playing our PSA over and over. It could be a PSA of anything we wanted.

Get a bullhorn and a car with a hole in the top.

Light projection onto a building

Footnote some existing text public places, our bodies.

Tour or scavenger hunt

PERFORMANCE IDEAS

Ourselves "placed" somewhere significant (or insignificant) words on us holding words

Have a public chalk talk where everyone could draw what they felt about the certain topic we had picked (What could we do with the drawings afterwards?)

Interpretive dance with words

Use the odeum at the Poetry Center to have a performance we choreograph and write a script for

ALTERATION IDEAS

Shirts

Banners or signs to hold up in public

change/add advertisements

zines

installation of altered or super intellectual barbies/beauty heads as in "what are they really thinking?:

Do something extreme with women's fashion over the ages like magnify it ridiculous corsets, high heels, etc. fashion show.

Footnote architectural wonders of Tucson or phallic spots in Tucson

words on household objects

stickers

use our henna tattoos to make a point

shopgiving (leave our books altered books, chapbook in Borders and Barnes and Noble)

OTHER IDEAS

Maybe a quilt of some kind of similar or opposing ideas or thoughts or opinions on a certain topic to show our humanity.

Distribute poems written on postcards in a big box bookstore.

Cookies with our writing.

Take our henna ideas writing symbols and draw them on flags and hang them up.

Get a bunch of leaves and typewrite on them without ribbon--let the chlorophyll bleed through and then blow them them all over the city.

Love notes for all.

Get lots of grrls in one place and have them read words/text aloud to say "no more silent girls."

Comments about public spaces/or lack of for youth...downtown and elsewhere

Commemorative plaques

Photoproject images of our hennaed bodies or of henna ceremony as it is happening to speak of ritual process and product afterwards

Keep video blog or photo blog of henna as it disappears

What to do if you missed 12/12 class

We spent the day discussing the phrase "body of knowledge." If you missed class, please write a blog response exploring three of the following questions:

What associations do you have with the phrase “body of knowledge?”
Who determines what you read in school? How or why are these decisions made?
How is what you read in school different than what you read at home?
Brainstorm a list of authors you have read in school? Do you notice any patterns about how/why they may have been selected?
Who/what determines the value of a work of literature?
What modes of writing seem more valued in our society than others?

Our art project for the day was altering texts. We read excerpts from Jenny Boully’s The Body
Homework was to create the text that Boully’s words footnote. In class we created an "erasure" using old romance novels. Visit this site for some good examples of erasure.

I recommend that you complete one of the projects listed above at home and return with them to class the next time we meet. You can get materials from Renee after class or stopping by the Poetry Center.

Blog Assignment for 11/28-12/5

Answer the following questions in your blog post:

When do you use your voice?
How do you use your voice?
Silence. What is it? How is it useful? Not useful?

Your blog assignment for 11/21-11/28

Find a "text" (piece of music, fashion, written work, a dance, a TV show, a museum exhibit, etc, etc, etc.) that somehow relates to the themes we've been discussing in class. Describe this "text" and then reflect on it. What do you think about it? Why is it a significant part of our culture?

Writing Exercise from 11/21/07 Class

In my body when a sweet potato sits in the folds of a dress I go to the Super; so many have been with the rough ended dirt and roots that have settled. Fish nets full of women's legs, full of women's fish. All my groceries, fruit filled with underhold. Smell the cilantro green shine. Go to fancy super no longer growing blood and all the vegetables saddled in their boxes coated and capped in foam or plastic in a number of lusty mouthed chemicals which is why I approached this kettle blindly.